Cave Anne de Joyeuse - Camas Pinot Noir Rosé 2016 IGP

Pale powder pink. Rose gold much? Nose of vanilla and pretty strawberries. Nifty sour balance from silky ribbons and fresh / double fresh acids. Ascorbic. Tree pollen. Full Malo maybe?

100% Pinot Noir from Pays d'Oc in the Languedoc. Grown on limestone and gravel vineyards in the upper Aude valley, with a cooler climate influenced by the Pyrenees. Good temperature variation keep this wine ripe but maintain the steely edge and soft color. Says direct pressed, brief, temperature controlled maceration.

The producer has been making wine in Limoux, pre AOC certification, and seemingly has a chunk of land. They produce almost two dozen cuvees, including 11 wines in the Camas range, of which there are also Syrah and Cinsault rosés.

They have taken an interesting middle road on vineyard practices, and practice some biodynamic fundamentals, such as harvesting to the plants schedule, promoting terroir and managing rain water, but truthfully they also subscribe to rational fertilization, and computer analysis to plot disease and minimize treatments. They are aware of the impacts however, and take pains to react accordingly to necessary invasive interventions.

They are certified Environmentally Friendly by the BVQI (Bureau Veritas Qualité International), who act as an ISO-9001 Quality Management System for the growing and winemaking process.

Mas d'Agalis - Yo No Puedo Mas 2014 VdF

Ripe red. Eggs. Egg shaped rocks. Match heads, sulphur. Sweet slippery. Vegetal greens. Baby arugula. Fleshy flat mid, spicy tannins. Jalapeno. Smoke.

50% Syrah, 40% Carignan, 10% Mourvèdre from 16 terraced acres in the Languedoc. 12 months in a combo of tank (60%) and (40%) barrique. Maybe the Carignan alone gets the wood, as at 70 years, they are the oldest of the vines by far. Hand picked, sorted, and 15 day fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Biodynamically farmed, manure, natural treatment. Bottled with a trace of sulphur if needed, less than 20mg/l, keeping it within Biodynamic allowances.

Lionel Maurel makes a couple cuvees, and this one gets the middle finger at the IONA,
"Yo No Puedo Mas" translates as "I can't take this anymore", declassifying the wine even from the Vin de Pays certification. He sneaks in the vintage with a not so vague XIV, Roman numeral 14.

Open Now 2015 Minervois AOC

Deep purple and red. Giant grey skies. Charcoal fruit. Extracted nose. Fresh, lovely creosote. Ashtrays full of olive pits. Char. Gum rubber. Waxy chalk, red earth. Minerals hiding as fizz / not fizz. Garrigue. Petrichor. Says 14%, smells like 100 proof.

60 Syrah. 40 Mourvedre. Fermented 3 weeks in concrete tanks. Aged 11 months on fine lees in small concrete tanks. Light filtration and minimal sulphur at bottling.

Demeter certified biodynamic on limestone and clay soils. Compost and manure are used to promote rich microbial life. Collected rainwater used for tisanes and biodynamic preparations as needed. Minimal interventions, hand harvested, and triaged before vinification.

The name and bottle gave a bit of a scare, but it's a perfectly respectable glou, just made by a Knight. Sir John Hegarty is a real life Don Draper and is the proprietor, while winemaker Jessica Servet, nobly, pushes the agenda.

Domaine Bories Jefferies - Brutal VdF 2014

Milky rusty purple. Stewed fruit. Wild clover honey, treacle. Bee fest. Raisinated raisins. The freshest Amarone. The cork was totally leaking, capsule stuck all around. Stunning bottle.

Almost 100% Grenache Noir with a little Terret, a white grape to take off the edge. Grown on a volcanic plateau in the Languedoc. Jo Jeffries is an Englishman who came to the South of France and never left.

Absolute minimal intervention. No fining, filter or added sulphur. "If I was baking a cake at home, I wouldn't put additives in it, so I don't put them in my wine either" he says. Another cracking natural wine made for the Brutal Wine Co project.

“If I was baking a cake at home, I wouldn’t put additives in it, so I don’t put them in my wine either”

— Jo Jeffries

Causse Toujours Ribiera 2012 VdF

Dark rocks. Rust. Peppery cherries in an aromatic brightness. Skin tannins numbing, maybe seeds, sticks? Pleasant roundness. Wild. Clanging Cinsault. Iron filings. Zinc.

Says Cinsault ↗️  Grenache ➡️  Syrah ↘️  on the label, and 65/25/10 on the website. Fair. IGP Pays d'Hérault because it's young. 10 year old vines. Manual harvest, Vinified in vats, native yeasts. Destemmed, pumped over, and racked to expose and oxidize, move things along. Natural, non filtered, no pesticides. Little or no sulphur at bottling.

Winemaker Régis Pichon was a Somm in Paris until he decamped for Languedoc in 2005. Growing local varietals, and making wine as the grapes see fit. This one is labelled as 2012? Where has it been hiding? It was also a steal. So.